Pao (8 page)

‘Yang Tzu is well. We have been working very hard in the fields so that we have enough. But times are hard. The warlords are relentless. They keep increasing the land rent and other taxes are high and numerous as ever. Yuan Shikai has even tried to have himself crowned as Emperor. Tzu continues to support the struggle of the revolutionary forces, but it is difficult. Many of the bourgeoisie seem happy to follow the warlords, and although Sun Yat-sen is still committed to the salvation of China the revolution seems to have lost its way. At the moment Tzu is deeply concerned about the Japanese who have taken control of Shandong and Manchuria and whose enterprises are expanding greatly in China. He is convinced that they are set on turning China into a colony for their exclusive exploitation while the Western imperialists are busy with their war in Europe. We have a son. Tzu insisted that he should be named Yang Xiuquan. So he too is thinking of you.’

‘Then in 1925 she sent me another letter.

‘Yang Tzu is dead. Shot by British and French soldiers at Shaji supporting Guangzhou-Hongkong strikers. We have a second son, Yang Pao. Your sister by affection. Meiling.

‘So that was when I went to Chin and the Chinatown Committee and asked them to pay me because in all the years I had never received a penny, I was just given whatever food or supplies I needed from the stores, and Chin paid my rent in Luke Lane so I had no need. But now I needed cash money for your passage. I also asked Chin to let me start up a little pai-ke-p’iao business. We Chinese like to gamble, so I thought I could make something there and he agreed.

‘Chin said to me, “You get woman and boys from China? Good. Time you married and have family.” So he was keen but he had the wrong idea, and I did not feel like I wanted to explain anything to him. I just wrote to Meiling and told her I would send the passage for the three of you to come to Jamaica.’

Next day I ask Ma why my father never reply to Zhang’s letter. She say, ‘He tried many times, but his tears soaked into the paper.’

After that I just do what Zhang tell me to do, and hope that maybe one day I become like him, a man that believe in something. A man that is loyal to a cause. A man that people can count on. Sun Tzu say, ‘
The wrong person cannot be appointed to command. This is like gluing the pegs of a lute and then trying to tune it
.’

8

Confirmation of the Ground

The year after Xiuquan gone to America Zhang tell me he want to stop.

‘I have lost two Yangs. Yang Tzu to glory and the revolution and Yang Xiuquan to the Americans and their war. I am tired, Pao. This business is not for old men like me.’

I reckon he think it was a new era because in 1944 Jamaica get a new constitution giving us representative government and they decide to call a general election so everybody was running round excited to go vote for the first time. So maybe Zhang think it was my time as well. My time to come of age. I take over little bit by bit, so that by the time the war end in 1945, and they say I turn twenty-one, I had complete control of Chinatown. And that was when it hit me. That after all these years I wasn’t playing at this thing no more. I was responsible.

Next thing Miss Tilly get herself a man and she want Hampton to move outta the house. Zhang say it OK Hampton can come live at Matthews Lane, so he move into the room next to Zhang. And this is when I discover how come Hampton so big and strong because when him move in him bring a tiny little bag with his things and a whole heap a iron that he set up in the yard so that every day he is busy doing bench and curl, and clean and jerk.

But then Tilly say she want all the surplus move outta her outhouse as well, and even though we have the storeroom at Matthews Lane Zhang say he don’t want the surplus in the yard. So me and Hampton have to go find somewhere to put it.

We rent a shop in West Street. It is a dark, rundown wreck of a place but it cheap and it have a big, dry storeroom out the back. We got no intention of turning our hand to shopkeeping but we reckon with a little fix-up and a lick of paint we can make a nice office away from Matthews Lane.

The only problem is we have to put something on the shelves to make it at least look like we in business. So we have to go buy some things because the surplus we have in the storeroom we can’t put out on the shelf like that in broad daylight. Well that is OK but we don’t want to put out so much stuff so we actually start attract business, not that there is much likelihood of that in a place like West Street. So we balance it out. Every now and again we get a vagrant come by and we have to give him something to scram. The whole thing work out right in the end.

Now me and Hampton and the Judge down there most days eating oysters and drinking beer. We still have Zhang’s weekly pick-up ’round Chinatown, and his pai-ke-p’iao business, which is good because Chin and the Chinatown Committee not looking after us like the way they do with Zhang in the beginning. Chin say that was a long time ago and a different sort of arrangement. Now we have to make our own way. So we got Bill, and now we have a Chinaman at a chicken farm in Red Hills telling his boss the chickens weigh four pounds when they weigh six and doing all sort of calculations over how many eggs he got; and we driving chickens and eggs all over town and taking our cut.

So business is good and we just beginning to think that maybe we should be hiring up some help, and that was when she turn up. Gloria. And everything that start with her start.

9

Humanity

The thing that play on my mind right after that night I go to tell Gloria about the wedding was how come she already know ’bout me marrying Fay. There wasn’t but three days between me asking Miss Cicely and me going to tell Gloria, but when I get there she already know all about it, I think it curious as is only me and Miss Cicely in the picture, apart from maybe Fay if Miss Cicely bother to mention it to her and I couldn’t see Fay going to Gloria with the news. So anyway I decide I going go ask Gloria but I dunno how to do it. I reckon I wait till Tuesday come round. That way she have the whole of the weekend to think on it and Tuesday is my regular day anyway. So I just bide my time and think that when Tuesday afternoon come I will just turn up on the doorstep like I do every week because my time with Gloria is Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon, and then Friday evening when I go make my collection but that is just business.

I dunno why it like that. It seem to me that Monday, Wednesday and Friday would make better sense. But it no matter what I think. My days is fixed just the way Gloria want it so that is how it is.

So Tuesday coming and I can’t decide whether to go over there or not. I don’t want to go in case she don’t want to see me. But I don’t want to not go in case she think I not interested. I don’t want her to start think that now I going marry Fay being with her, Gloria, don’t mean nothing to me. I hope she know that she mean more to me than that even though I can’t marry her. And then I start think what do I mean to her? She got so many men coming and going maybe she just think I one of them. One of them stupid, clumsy, good-for-nothing oaf that she and the girls always joking and laughing about when they gone. But I don’t think she see me that way. After all she even tell me I didn’t have to pay if I didn’t want to, but that no seem right to me. It would seem like I was taking advantage because I think she only say it to me because of the protection we providing. But then I think I must mean something more than that to her because if I didn’t she wouldn’t have react the way she done when I tell her ’bout Fay. She would have just shrug her shoulder and say pour a drink so I can make you a toast. But she didn’t do that, so that must tell me something.

When Tuesday come, I go. I knock at the door and after some long time she finally turn up and open it. She look at me, sorta up and down, and she just shut the door. She never even say a word to me. She just leave me standing there on the porch when she turn back and go inside. And looking at the closed door like that, I realise I wasn’t going ask her nothing that day.

When Thursday come I can’t make up my mind what to do. Is she testing me? Is she wanting me to show her how sorry I am? Maybe she want to teach me a lesson or maybe she just nuh ready. But the last thing I can afford to do is look like I don’t care, so I go.

Gloria open the door and step back inside. And she just stand there looking at me. So I ease past her and step into the living room. And after a little while she walk out. I reckon she gone go make the tea so I sit down on the sofa and make myself look as prim and sorrowful as I can. I keep both my feet on the ground with my knees together and my hands in my lap so I don’t take up too much space even though I am the only one sitting there. Then I start look ’round the room and I think how masculine it look considering there is only four women a live here. So I try figure out what make it look that way, and I realise that there isn’t one single ornament in the place. Not a picture on the wall. Nothing. It like the place strip down apart from the two sofas and a coffee table, and some Venetian blind at the window and the bar in the corner. And I think how different this look from the back room that I have dinner in that very first time I come here. And how the spirit of this room sorta still and empty apart from the little breeze that is coming through the window. And how different it feel compared to that night in the back room when the four of them was singing and dancing and talking ’bout Bustamante setting up the Jamaica Labour Party. And how the life in them and their energy and their spirit lift up the place. Sitting here in this stagnant room it didn’t seem like that other thing could even be possible. I start to wonder how come I never notice before what this room was like. Never notice before the sadness in it. And I realise that every other time I was in the room it was full of men and music and liquor. And when it wasn’t that it was me and tea and Gloria. And right then I wasn’t looking at no wall to see they not got no picture on. All I was looking at was her.

I am sitting there this long while and she nuh come back. So I start examine the floor and make my own patterns outta how the white colour swirling through the dark grey tiles and then after a while I get the feeling of someone standing there in the doorway. When I look up it is Marcia. She say to me, ‘Gloria not here, yu know.’

‘She not here?’

‘No. She gone into town.’

‘She gone into town?’

‘Yu going repeat everything I say?’

I just stop and I look at Marcia because I can’t believe Gloria do this to me. This thing gone beyond a joke now.

‘I dunno what time she coming back, so I can’t say nothing to yu ’bout how long yu should spend your time waiting here.’

I don’t bother go there the next afternoon like I supposed to. But come evening I go pick up the money and she is there dress in a tight red frock that show off every curve of every inch of her body. And I can see that every man in that room want to reach out and touch her, but him know that you can’t just grab a woman like that, all you can do is maybe brush up against her like it a accident, or pat her arm as you talking, or maybe take her hand like you playing with her or swinging into a little dance, but just when your other arm want to reach ’round her waist and pull her in you have to check yourself. It like Gloria got a big notice hanging ’round her neck and it say, ‘Watch yourself, man.’

When she finally decide to come give me the money she don’t say nothing to me. She just walk over to the door where I am standing, but when she get close to me I step outside. So she follow me, and when it just the two of us on the porch I say to her, ‘I know I not got no place complaining ’bout how you treat me this week. I just wondering how much longer you going carry on like this.’

She staring out into the dark yard and after some long while she say to me in this calm, cold voice, ‘I only ever ask you for one thing and you do it, and that was a piece of business for both of us. That is how it started. It didn’t start out as personal, but I dunno what happen. Maybe it was because of how patient you was, sitting there drinking tea and doing your handiwork, till in the end it was me that had to give you permission to make a move. You are the only man I ever know like that. Every other man I know just want to jump me the minute he clap eyes on me. That is how it been for me my whole life.’

All that is there in the silence between us is the click of a cricket here and there. So I just wait because I can feel that she got more to say.

‘When I find out you going marry Fay Wong I almost couldn’t believe it. It was like I must have dreamed it when I thought you had some feeling and respect for me. Not that a woman in my position can have much to say ’bout respect. But it hurt. It hurt bad because the worst thing about it was it put me in my place. It told me who I really am to you. Your three-time-a-week whore.’

I grab her shoulder and turn her ’round.

‘Gloria, it not like that. It not like that at all.’

And she look me in the face and say, ‘How is it then, Pao? What is it like?’

‘It is like –’ and I stop because I really have to think what I am going to say to her. ‘It is like every day you go out and you see this independent, strong, beautiful animal. Maybe something like a tiger, and you happy with that, but everybody tell you that a grown man got to have him something to keep at home. He can’t be out every day chasing after some tiger that is going about her own business. And you think yes, so you go get yourself a cage and you get the tiger and you put it in there. And maybe you happy for a while but it not long before you start to think well this tiger just sitting there every day now, waiting for me to feed it, and clean out the cage, and entertain it and tend to it when it sick. It don’t do nothing for itself no more. And after a while it start to vex you because it nothing like the animal that you used to see running free and full of life. Now it just lazy and dead. Yu no get no pleasure from it no more, but you have to live with that because is you that kill it.’